Buy State Flags from Allstate FlagsBuy US flags from Five Star Flags
This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website

Russian subnational flags

Last modified: 2006-07-29 by antonio martins
Keywords: s |
Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors



See also: Other sites:

Russian subnational flags

All Russian Federation subdivisions are entitled to have flags, but subjects other than republics were allowed to adopt flags only shortly before (or in early) 1994.
António Martins, 20 Dec 1999 and 11 Mar 2000

In an only partly related article in The Moscow Times, it is said that the national government now claims a right to allow or disallow subdivisional flags.
John Ayer, 12 Dec 2002

Left without flag now are only the following 1st order subdivisions [flags meanwhile adopted overstriken and new info added — ed.]

  • Arkhangelsk region (officially confirmed as flagless as of 2002.02.08; private proposals circulate)
  • Kaliningrad region (officially confirmed as flagless as of 1999.03.06; official workgroup to create a flag known to be set up as of 2002.02.26)
  • Kaluga region (flag adopted on 2001.12)
  • Kamchatka region (flag adopted on 2002.02 — no image yet)
  • Kirov region (situation unknown)
  • Lipetsk region (confirmed as flagless as of 1998.12.22 and (officially) 2000.02.16)
  • Murmansk region (official competition announced on 1999.02.15; project officially presented on 2002.03.15)
  • Nenetsia (flag adopted)
  • Nizhny-Novgorod region (confirmed as flagless as of 1999.03.01 and 2000.04.24)
  • Novgorod region (officially confirmed as flagless as of 2002.02.08; informal flag officially suggested on 1999.05.31 but as of 1999.11.15 apparently not used)
  • Novosibirsk region (official coat of arms competition announced in 2000)
  • Omsk region (unconfirmed adoption in 1999; official competitions announced on 1995.02.27 and 1997.12.09)
  • Orel region (flag adopted on 2002.07.31)
  • Penza region (flag adopted in late 2002 — still not fully approved)
  • Perm region (official workgroup to create a flag known to be set up as of 1998.10.14; flag for the governor adopted on 1996.11.22)
  • Pskov region (flag adopted on unknown date — no image yet)
  • Tambov region (official workgroup to create a flag known to be set up as of 2002.02.26)
  • Tula region (situation unknown)
  • Ulyanovsk region (flag adopted on 2004.02.2)
Pascal Gross, 05 Feb 2002

Russian subdivisions flag laws are quite similar and actually they follow each other almost word by word and in turn were based on the current russian constitution (article about the flag, coat-of-arms, anthem and capital) and flag laws — which in turn was taken with minor differences from the soviet constitution of 1980, or possibly earlier.
António Martins, 20 Jan 2000

Unstrict enforcement of flag laws (regarding design) is not uncommon — Adygeia flies a medium green flag and its law says dark aquamarine, Yakutia flies a medium blue flag and its laws says light blue, Chuvashia flies a medium red flag and its law says dark red, and probably more.
António Martins, 19 Apr 2000

I am most impressed by these Russian municipal flags — some fine vexillography being done in Russia it seems!
Rob Raeside, 15 Mar 2003


Soviet-inspired design

The design of many current, post-soviet Russian subnational flags includes an unmistakable soviet element — the vertical bar at the hoist.
António Martins, 12 Jan 2003

Some of these are:

Of course there are also flags and emblems including hammers and sickles, etc.
António Martins, 21 Nov 2005


Legal restriction to mainly horizontal white-blue-red Russian subnational flags

One of the requests of the Russian federal constitutional law About the State Flag of Russian Federation, prohibits as a fundamentals for flags of the subjects of federation to utillize a State Flag of Russia.
Mikhail Revnivtsev, 29 Jan 2003

This already caused the change of the Khakassian republic flag, in 2003. Changes are to be expected also in the flags of Chukotka and Orenburg city, to name but two subnational flags.
António Martins, 29 Dec 2003

An exception is made in the case of flags pre-dating the legislation forbidding use of the National Flag on any regional flags.
Christopher Southworth, 29 Sep 2003


Trend to match the national flag ratio

It seems that the standard ratio for (territorial?) flags in Russia shall be 2:3 like the Federal Russian flag. The MPs adopted amendments in the Law about the State symbolic of Bashkortostan. Can we expect all the flags of Republic, regions, etc. be also 2:3 in ratio?
Pascal Vagnat, 30 Jan 2003

Yes, it’s the prevailing tendence: as since 1993 the State flag of the Russian Federation has a ratio of width by the length as 2:3. But some regions and some municipalities have flags with ratio as 1:2.
Mikhail Revnivtsev, 12 Aug 2005

A federal law imposing 2:3 ratio to all subnational flags does not exist. There is only an recommendation of Heraldic Council at the President of the Russian Federation about desirability of ratio 2:3 at adopting of flags of municipalities. This recommendation is considered at the decision of a question on registration flags of regions and municipalities in the State Heraldic Register of the Russian Federation.
Mikhail Revnivtsev, 16 Aug 2005


Russian subnational coats-of-arms

In some russian regions (V. Novgorod, f.i.) we have detected a pattern that the regional coat of arms is the same as the capital city coat of arms (which in turn is identical to the pre-1917 coat of arms), but with the traditional achievements (imperial crown and oak wreath with band), while the current city coat of arms shows only a civic crown.
António Martins, 04 Jan 2000

In russian heraldry (rules of 1857):

  • arms of towns must have red ribbons (St. Alexander Order) and mural crowns of diferent colours
  • arms of territories (oblast) must have red ribbons and “ancient prince crowns”
  • arms of governorates (gubernia) — blue ribbons (St. Andrew Order) and imperial crowns. The capitals (Moscow and St. Petersburg) used the imperial crowns on the city arms too.
  • Several ancient towns had special crowns (like ancient crowns of czars).
Modern Regions of Russian Federation are the Governorates in the past. That’s why they use blue ribbons on their arms (they copy old governorate’s arms, sometimes with imperial crown (Orenburg Region, Tomsk Region etc), sometimes without the crown (Saratov Region, Ulianovsk Region etc).
Victor Lomantsov, 07 Oct 2000

All major cities were granted arms during the Tsarist era — these exist today at least as traditional, unofficial coat of arms. In many cities, these have been officially (re)approved as official. And note that some even have had different coats of arms thrughout time, incl. in the soviet era, (e.g., Osmk).
António Martins, 02 Jul 2001

We have seen that in most cases the adopted arms are identical to the pre-1917 version, if not in detail, at least blazoned in the same way. This is true for most division capital cities, for many non-capital cities and even for the regions and territorries themselves (though excluding most republics and a few of the other divisions).
António Martins, 08 Apr 2000

Construction of civic arms divided per fess (with arms of provincial centre in upper part) is used in Russia since 1780ths. But in fact shields without provincial arms in upper part are used (since 1850ths) very often. The shield with prov. arms looks “old fashioned”.
Victor Lomantsov, 30 Mar 2000


Anything below this line was not added by the editor of this page.